So, how did you lose your virginity?
The question popped out of my mouth, at dinner with friends. I was tired of small talk and clever banter, itching for something more.
People laughed, but they were game. We went around the table and started sharing our stories, one-by-one. It was riveting, hilarious, emotional, profound. The party ignited.
I never forgot the feeling.
Some years later:
I asked the owner of my neighbourhood café if we could start an oral storytelling group, after hours. His customers were sharing deep, personal stories with me and I wanted more. Much more. I figured they would, too.
The owner got fired up, said he’d mount a stage with a mic and amp, and arrange all the chairs, theatre-style.
But, I said, no. I didn’t want people to have to perform their stories on a stage. I wanted us to sit, side-by-side, around the same table, so every one of us could have the chance to share from the heart.
I called the OG group, Storytime. We met monthly, and the regulars always brought friends. We told, listened to, and were wowed by our stories for five deeply wonderful years – when the pandemic struck.
It was time to scale the dream. To imagine and bring to life a global storytelling platform called The Village, online and in-person, live and curated, rooted in the Storytime experience. It was time to bust out of my neighbourhood café, and invite the world.
That, dear people, is our story. Yours, too, if you dare.
Brenda Keesal
Want to learn more or hire us?
C.A.N.D.Y. I knew I was a writer when I signed my first word to my deaf grandparents, one sweet letter at a time.
Brenda Keesal, Creative Director & Facilitator
Brenda Keesal is a multi-modal artist, love activist and creator of transformative gatherings. Fusing her talent and vision with her love of people, her emotional-action work provokes, uplifts and inspires.
As a writer and indie filmmaker, Brenda’s award-winning films WANKER and Jack & Ella garnered cult status and played theatrically, on TV, the internet and at international festivals. Her blog Burns the Fire inspired a passionate following and won multiple WordPress awards.
In 2015, Brenda founded the original Storytime, an interactive oral storytelling lab in her neighbourhood café. She guides an incredible diversity of groups through the triumphs and heartbreaks of their lives, weaving their stories together and building bridges to each other.
Storytime is the root system of Brenda’s broader vision, The Village, an oral storytelling and media platform and global peace initiative. She lives to inspire and bring people together.
What people are saying about Brenda
Absolutely of this time
I continue to be astonished by the incredible work you are doing and the many ways in which this work is touching the hearts and lives of so many ‘ordinary’ people living their extraordinary lives with all that that means . You have found something that is absolutely of this time, that speaks to the very heart and soul of our personal needs for connection.
Empathy and skill
Brenda is an extraordinary facilitator, creating a safe space where everyone felt seen and heard. Her empathy and skill in drawing out our stories were remarkable, helping me to navigate the horrors of the war…
Life-changing
Brenda has the amazing skill of opening people up to the most sincere and heartwarming conversations, even during the hardest of times. The calls she ran for us have been life-changing for so many, including me.
Founder, Open Babylon, PolyAgent,
Ukraine Now, Radical Philanthropies, Corona Why
Silicon Valley, USA
I was always told that people were not ready for my depth. It became my gift to the world.
Rachael Madore, Facilitator
Rachael Madore is a bilingual (EN/FR) storyteller, space holder, and changemaker on a mission to support collective healing. Over years of travel and self-study across various healing modalities, she has become highly skilled at presence, intentionality, emotional regulation, and compassionate listening.
With an educational and professional background in social entrepreneurship, Rachael is dedicated to making an impact in the community through meaningful interaction with its members. A written, oral, musical, and visual storyteller, she helps others to share their stories and better understand each other.
Over the past year, she has built a rich community that gathers for Storytime across Montreal. She is currently becoming certified as an Authentic Facilitator with Authentic Revolution.
Leveraging sensitivity as her superpower, Rachael facilitates safe and brave spaces that encourage vulnerability and transformation.
What people are saying about rachael
Natural born facilitator
Rachael is a natural born facilitator who fosters a welcoming and inclusive environment for all storytellers. Her respectful and kind approach ensures that every voice is heard and valued, making the group a supportive space to connect, make friends, and enjoy fantastic stories.
Jerome S
Therapist
Montreal, Canada
Deeply attentive
Rachael is deeply attentive, as both facilitator, listener, and teller. I have come thinking I have a story prepared that will “wow” all who listen, only to be completely changed to meet the emergent quality of this beautiful and vulnerable container.
Safe space to open up
You inspired me a lot in your way of creating a safe space so people want to open up, in your way of honouring Indigenous peoples and connecting traditional oral traditions with the act of telling stories that we were about to live. I’m taking note for my own group activities.
Michaël Boudreau
Musician, Facilitator
Montreal, Canada
How can stories bring us together to face the challenges ahead.
Daniel Lindenberger, Facilitator and Co-producer
Three key strands have woven through Daniel’s life since childhood: Community, Human Potential, and Technology.
Through the late 80s and 90s, a vibrant youth culture of what would later be called “Cultural Creatives” (“weirdos” at the time) formed in Vancouver. This set a course for Daniel that placed community based on meaningful connection as a central piece of his life. His interest in community formation & function has included time as a board member of the Canadian Cohousing Association and the Group Pattern Language Project, whose open source “Group Works” pattern language deck has been translated into 5 languages and is in its second printing. As founding member of Source Facilitation Collective, he is a trained facilitator in Consensus, Sociocracy and Way of Council processes.
Daniel’s exploration of human potential led him through a five month journaling journey in Nepal, India, into and out of the Kundalini Yoga community, through study of eastern religions and western magic, Jungian psychology and . Now, as cofounder at Thaumazo, Daniel is exploring how we reach our potential – individually and collectively, internally and globally by bringing people together around projects focused on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
My work is rooted in the belief that storytelling is a catalyst for personal and collective healing.
Natalie Karneef, Facilitator
Natalie Karneef is a screenwriter, podcaster, essayist, journalist, facilitator, ordained meditation teacher, and advocate for human connection. She has spent over two decades helping people find and share their voices through storytelling, mindfulness, and creative expression.
Natalie’s journey as a writer has taken her from broadcasting studios to classrooms around the world. As a facilitator, she strives to create inclusive and supportive spaces that foster connection and transformation, encouraging participants to tap into their authentic selves.
Deeply committed to community building, Natalie has collaborated with diverse groups to spark meaningful dialogue and empower individuals to share their stories. Her work is rooted in the belief that storytelling is a catalyst for personal and collective healing. She continues to develop and lead classes workshops that inspire vulnerability, connection, and growth while championing the power of storytelling to bridge divides and build understanding. She is second generation Lebanese-Canadian and currently spends her time between Montreal and Turkiye.
Leonora Nicholson, Assistant to the creative director
Leo (she/her) is a poet, grass roots entrepreneur and creative producer currently living in Warsaw, Poland. She is the Director of Unheard poetry whose mission it is to bring poetry back to the people. She trained in technical theatre and spent years inhabiting theatre’s across the UK before swapping that out for the Polish capital of Warsaw.
Her facilitation work has crossed continents, working with children, CEO’s and everyone in-between. Her workshops are a unique blend of exploration and openness. Her own creative practice focuses on character analyses, psychogeography and social activism. Her love and belief in people populates her work no matter what form it takes. She has recently released her first zine ‘Not as good as it sounds’ and is working on her first play.
Our Advisors
It takes a village to build one.
We are beyond proud to introduce you to an extraordinary network of gifted people, whose invaluable insight, experience, and connecting powers are helping bring the dream to life.
Want to work with us? Send us an email.
Fundamentally we are creatures of story, and when the environment and framing is right, the simple act of sharing our personal stories with each other is connective and transformative at the deepest levels. Storytime achieves this, time and again, turning strangers into a community, and a community into friends. The act of being heard compassionately, and of hearing with love those with stories different from our own is a key to fixing much of what’s troubling in the world.
Daniel Lindenberger, Community, Human Potential, Technology, Thaumazo
The Village 